Case Study: Conversions to Black & White |
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EddyH ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 22 August 2010 Country: Belgium Location: Antwerp Status: Offline Posts: 441 |
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Nice post! I work in the printing industry and I know that people are struggling with B/W conversions...
But myself, I'm a bit lazy... ![]() Of course there are also other tools, which will simulate the properties of old B/W films. If you like B/W they're really worth while to test. |
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2 eyes | 2 slices of silicon | a few kilos of glass | my photo blog
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romke ![]() Senior Member ![]() Knowledge Base Contributor Joined: 03 September 2009 Country: Netherlands Location: Putte Status: Offline Posts: 3138 |
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Those who use Lr could perhaps find the following useful.
If having a color image open either in "Library" or in "Development" pressing the "V" key on the keyboard toggles between color and B&W. it thus gives a immediate view of what it could look like. the image is rendered in the basic B&W treatment, so it may need (quite) a bit of adjustment, but it is a easy way to screen a number of images fast on their suitability for conversion to B&W. When converting color images to B&W in Lr there are various ways to do it. The most attractive way is to go to the "Color Adjustments Panel" and then reduce the saturation to -100 for all the 8 channels/colors. That is a bit of work, but it can be set to a preset ![]() The nice thing about using the "Color Adjustment Panel" to reduce the saturation (in comparison to doing it in the "basic" panel) is that all the color adjustment possibilities still are available. You thus can for example change the luminance of individual colors to change the look of the image dramatically. this gives you far more control over the end result then other methods in Lr. |
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alpha_in_exile ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 26 September 2007 Country: United States Location: United States Status: Offline Posts: 3212 |
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GIMP users will find this tutorial useful, though the menus of the current GIMP version have changed slightly from those of the version that was out when the tutorial was written.
Specifically, all of the functions were moved from the "Image" menu to the "Colors" menu. The linked tutorial covers greyscale conversion, desaturation, decomposing, and channel mixing. |
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-- Matt
A7RM4, Min 24/2.8, Min 50/1.4, FE 24/1.4 GM, FE 50/1.2 GM, FE 135/1.8 GM, FE 70-200/2.8 GM II my web gallery |
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Micholand ![]() Admin Group ![]() Knowledgebase Contributor Joined: 30 October 2005 Country: Germany Location: MUC Status: Offline Posts: 19214 |
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Seems as the Calculations tutorial posted above is meanwhile down
![]() But I recently found another one ![]()
Edited by Micholand - 30 May 2013 at 08:16 |
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Micholand ![]() Admin Group ![]() Knowledgebase Contributor Joined: 30 October 2005 Country: Germany Location: MUC Status: Offline Posts: 19214 |
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You're absolutely right, besides the described "basic" ways there is another special method to convert a colour photo to black and white which is using "Calculations" in Photoshop. It's quite similar to the channel mixer, but it does have it's own individual style of desaturating things. I disregarded it though as it's somehow an advanced method and also Photoshop specific, but it's certainly worth mentioning. In short: The Calculations Method allows you to combine two colour channels of your image into a black and white image. The Calculations dialogue lets you choose which channels to combine - the red, green, blue and grey channel - and how to combine these two by the use of different blending modes and amount of opacity. There isn't a lot of "how-to" information about using Calculations, however I was happy to find this very good online tutorial "The Calculations Method - Photoshop Tutorials" that walks through the process in detail and with good explanation. Edited by Micholand - 18 May 2008 at 18:13 |
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wattsbw2004 ![]() Groupie ![]() Joined: 09 May 2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Posts: 116 |
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What about using the calculations technique that Scott Kelby talks about in his Photoshop CS3 for photographers book. Thas also one worth mentioning because it creates some dramatic B&W images.
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David_S ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 20 May 2006 Country: United States Location: Ohio Status: Offline Posts: 2607 |
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Thanks for this article since there are so many images that look better in B&W IMO. Just a tip for those out there using CS3 it has a B&W adjustment mode that allows you to individually adjust the CMYRGB channels which is really nice for some fine tuning of a B&W conversion. Of course being as daft as I am I only recently discovered this and have been using CS3 for a year or more I think
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maewpa ![]() Alpha Eyes group ![]() Joined: 27 October 2007 Country: United Kingdom Location: Thailand Status: Offline Posts: 7218 |
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I also find this incredibly useful. It lost me first time around, but when I want back and put a little effort in, it all made sense. Thanks, Michael, for sharing. And the examples from Bob J are icing on the cake.
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Paul aka maewpa
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alphadog ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 24 September 2006 Country: United States Location: United States Status: Offline Posts: 303 |
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Very interesting reading and great examples. Thanks Micholand & Bob J!
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Dirk ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 19 April 2006 Country: Netherlands Location: Netherlands Status: Offline Posts: 2413 |
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And to 2nd Polossatik, sorry Bob, thanks a lot for the examples. |
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polossatik ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 16 August 2006 Country: Belgium Location: Brussels Status: Offline Posts: 1013 |
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I just noticed that in all my joy ![]() The Dyxum Knowledge Base is indeed just this, a *Knowledge* Base. As ever, a big thank you for everyone to do this! |
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7D / A580 and assorted lenses from 8mm fish to 1000mm / Minolta 7s Rangefinder /
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Micholand ![]() Admin Group ![]() Knowledgebase Contributor Joined: 30 October 2005 Country: Germany Location: MUC Status: Offline Posts: 19214 |
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I'm glad you all found my article useful
![]() To be honest, at first I was a bit surprised about the lack of responses after it was rolled out, but with such nice feedback now I think it was worth the effort. Anyway, looking forward to see some of your b&w attempts in the Dyxum Photographs.
As a general starting point analyze the individual channels first, choose which channels offer you the most detail and tonality on an image by image basis. Select the channel with the most detail to be the dominant channel for the channel mixer and then adjust the sliders to add/subtract some of the other colour channels. The choices made are purely aesthetic. In order to maintain the density or overall brightness of the image, the percentage totals should not exceed 100% otherwise there is a risk of losing highlight information. Play! There are many interpretations possible, in the end it's always a personal thing, everyone to his taste ![]() Edited by Micholand - 27 April 2008 at 20:06 |
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redmalloc ![]() Senior Member ![]() Joined: 16 July 2006 Country: United States Location: United States Status: Offline Posts: 855 |
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My sentiment exactly! I never thought about using different color modes. What an idea. So simple and obvious once someone tells you ![]() |
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T: 17-50 70-200 100-300
M: 7D 16 28-135 50M 85 70-210 S: A700 |
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danny ![]() Groupie ![]() Joined: 15 October 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Posts: 78 |
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I've been searching for something this for a while. Thank you very much for investing the time to share!
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Danny -- On Flickr
a100 -- Sony 18-70, Minolta 50mm f/1.7, Minolta 70-210 f/4 |
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